The present invention generally relates to managing online metadata about online and offline resources, i.e., managing online data that locates and describes resources which may be either online or offline. More specifically, as a resource metadata management system, the invention provides a mechanism for addressing the internet and accessing the semantic web and grid. The PORTAL-DOORS System has been described in the applicant's prior U.S. Provisional Patent Application 60/94,451 filed on 17 Jun. 2007 [1] and United States Patent Application 20080313229 which was filed 21 Sep. 2007, published 18 Dec. 2008, and issued 7 Sep. 2010 as U.S. Pat. No. 7,792,836 with all related prior art including other patents as cited therein [2].
The present invention improves upon the prior invention by adding new methods to the PORTAL-DOORS System that address the following problems:                How to improve the efficiency of communications and operations between different network nodes within the system at different stages of development and build-out of the distributed network of registrars, registries and directories.        How to improve the efficiency of analysis of metadata contained within the records maintained by the distributed network of registrars, registries and directories.        How to enable metadata records, considered secondary resources, to provide information about other metadata records, considered primary resources, when the respective authors of the primary and secondary resources are different.        How to define and differentiate one problem oriented domain from another in the PORTAL-DOORS System in order to improve the efficiency of performing search queries within each problem oriented domain.        
Solutions to these problems are described herein and in the Provisional Applications 61/159,773, 61/348,224, and 61/412,280 with their attachments of manuscripts previously submitted with the Provisional Applications. Those manuscripts have since been published as                Alternative Bootstrapping Design for the PORTAL-DOORS Cyberinfrastructure with Self-Referencing and Self-Describing Features by Carl Taswell, in Semantic Web; Wu, G., Ed.; IN-TECH Publishing, 2009; chapter 2, pp. 29-7,        A Distributed Infrastructure for Metadata about Metadata: The HDMM Architectural Style and PORTAL-DOORS System by Carl Taswell, 2010 Future Internet 2(2):156-189,        Concept Validating Methods for Maintaining the Integrity of Problem Oriented Domains in the PORTAL-DOORS System by Carl Taswell, in AMIA IDAMAP 2010: Intelligent Data Analysis in Biomedicine and Pharmacology, November 2010, Washington D.C.; pp. 78-79 in Workshop Notes edited by K. T. Phillips and S. Swift,which are also attached and incorporated herein.        